


Alive Through Your Dreams

by nightwingingit



Category: DBSK | Tohoshinki | TVfXQ | TVXQ, JYJ (Band)
Genre: Angst, Coma, Dreams, First Kiss, M/M, Oneshot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:01:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22262239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightwingingit/pseuds/nightwingingit
Summary: “Yunho come here!”“But mom...” 10 year old Yunho doesn’t turn around as he stares at a face he’s never actually seen but knows too well.“Honey, come on.  Leave these people alone.”  Ms. Jung turns to the old couple sitting in the folding chairs beside the boy laying in the hospital bed, “I’m so sorry for his behavior”.“I know him, I played with him yesterday”.  Yunho isn’t giving in as he continues to stare at the seemingly sleeping boy.  He pouts because his mom doesn’t understand that he needs to be with this person.
Relationships: Jung Yunho/Kim Jaejoong
Kudos: 23





	Alive Through Your Dreams

“Yunho come here!”  
  
“But mom...” 10 year old Yunho doesn’t turn around as he stares at a face he’s never actually seen but knows too well.  
  
“Honey, come on. Leave these people alone.” Ms. Jung turns to the old couple sitting in the folding chairs beside the boy laying in the hospital bed, “I’m so sorry for his behavior”.  
  
“I know him, I played with him yesterday”. Yunho isn’t giving in as he continues to stare at the seemingly sleeping boy. He pouts because his mom doesn’t understand that he needs to be with this person.  
  
He couldn’t be any older than Yunho himself. The boy’s hair was black and extremely soft-looking, like sleek beautiful feathers, framing his face. The hair accentuated the fact that the boy had white creamy skin, it was not shiny like plastic, yet it seemingly glowed in the sunlight that filtered in through the window which gave a view to the green courtyard and was framed with red and yellow flowers in pots along the sill. The boys face was peaceful. His small naturally rosy mouth almost smiling as if he knew Yunho was there. Because his eyes were shut it gave attention to his thick and long dark eyelashes, seemingly fluttering as if he were about to wake up and open them, yet it was probably just the breeze that flowed through the open window.  
  
Yunho reaches out to grab the boy’s hand, to tell him to wake up so that he could see the large blue eyes that were hidden behind his eyelids, wake up so that Yunho could hear his laughter and see a full smile on those pouty lips.  
  
Ms. Jung grabbed onto Yunho’s hand before he could touch the boy on the bed, “Yunho that’s impossible this boy has been… in a coma since two days ago.” She glances at the elderly couple again, so sorry to them that her son has come in and disturbed their visit.  
  
Yunho doesn’t listen, he isn’t a rebellious child but he is stubborn to the core, when he has his mind set on something there is nothing that can stop him, even if he is normally quite respectful, “No mom! I’m telling the truth! I met him in my dream… he took me to the playground at his house, it has a swing set and a slide! Why don’t we have a playground at our house?”  
  
Ms. Jung is taken aback and so is the elderly couple, “Because we live in an apartment, Yunho. Now that’s enough from you!” She speaks not angrily but in horror, she cannot imagine what the elderly couple is feeling, to have their son in a coma and another child speaking nonsense to them. She feels sick, she would never wish that upon anyone.  
  
‘They don’t believe me!’ Yunho thought, his resilience increasing tenfold. He struggles out of his mothers hold and goes to the window.  
  
“It’s true! He showed me his garden, and he grew these red and yellow flowers, he called them taffydils or something“. He plucked a red daffodil from one of the flower pots and rushed to the boy in the bed, “He had one in his hair like this”. He put the flower behind the boys ear, “I told him it looked girly but he said that I was being mean so I said I was sorry”.  
  
“Jung Yunho! Come here and apologize!”  
  
“But mom I said I was sorry! I didn’t mean to be mean!” Yunho misunderstood his mother’s exasperation; she meant that he should apologize to the older couple for disturbing them.  
  
“Yunho sto-“  
  
“Wait a second” The elderly woman finally speaks up. Her husband is quiet, letting her voice their words and he holds her hand and smiles fondly at little Yunho. Her voice is a bit shaky from age, but you could tell she’s lived a long and healthy life. She has a warm smile on her face full of laugh lines, “The boy is no trouble at all. In fact, it’s comforting to us old folk to have such an energetic young thing here”.  
  
“Oh”, Was all Ms. Jung could say.  
  
“In fact, I always see this boy here at the hospital he is a great sunshine to us. It would be very comforting and not a bother at all if he were here with our little Jaejoong”.  
  
“Jung! We need you with the patient on the third floor.” A woman’s voice called from the hall.  
  
“I’m on it! Are you sure?” She asked. Yunho was always here after school. His mother worked as a nurse. Yunho is very mature and smart for his age. He was well known among the staff and overall an obedient child that had caused no problems except for today.  
  
The elderly couple nods. She looks at the couple, the comatose boy, and then back at Yunho. If it would make the couple happy and also since she couldn’t pull her boy away from this sadly comatose child… there was nothing else she could do.  
  
“Jung!” The voice called again a little more urgently.  
  
She quickly went over to Yunho and kissed his forehead, “You know what a coma is?”  
  
He nods, he does know, his mom told him when they were driving home in the car once, “It’s a person who sleeps but won’t wake up.”  
  
“The boy can’t play with you but if you wish to stay you can. Just mind your manners okay?” Her eyes prick with tears, if her boy has to be at the hospital with her then of course he knows about things like a coma, things like sickness, and most certainly death, things that children are usually protected from. But ever since her husband passed, it’s been a hard road for both of them and to pretend that he cannot face the things he is able to would be an injustice to the very well-rounded and capable Yunho, Yunho who has been through all these hard times with her, Yunho who she knows, is much more capable than a normal 10 year old.  
She kisses him on the forehead before she rushes out.  
  
Yunho turns back to the beautiful boy in the bed. He fixes the boys hair, pushing it out of his eyes and readjusts the flower, “Mom, always worries about silly things. Don’t worry about it, I’ll take care of everything, I’ll come visit you every day”. The elderly couple watches him, not really knowing if he is talking to them or to their son. They don’t know if they believe it quiet yet but they certainly don’t doubt that the boy was telling the truth. You see, they do have a playground with a swing and slide and a garden full of red and yellow daffodils at home.  
  
\----  
  
 _“Yunho! You’re finally here!” Jaejoong is ecstatic. He runs to Yunho full force and hugs him, burying his face into Yunho’s shirt, “I missed you”. They are in Jaejoong’s garden, green and vibrantly colorful, with a brook of stone that has clear water flowing down. It’s been 8 years and Yunho meets Jae in his dreams every night._  
  
 _“Sorry” Yunho laughs hugging Jae and swinging him in a circle._  
  
 _“What do you want to do today?” Jae asks excitedly._  
  
 _“I want to show you the aquarium” Yunho tells him, Jae squeals._  
  
 _This is what Yunho does every night. Jaejoong is always there in his dream, waiting for him to show him the world that Jae cannot experience himself. Yunho has a photographic memory; he spends his days trying to remember every detail of the things he wants to share with Jaejoong._  
  
 _When it was the amusement park it was the colors that brightened the walkways, the heat that pounded down on him, the stuffed animal stands that he knew Jaejoong loved so much, the taste of cotton candy because he knew Jaejoong loved sweets, the feeling of anticipation as you ride up a roller coaster, and the fearful exhilaration of racing down one. Yunho has found he could share all of this with Jaejoong as long as he remembered it well enough to recreate it in his dream._  
  
 _The garden dissipates as Yunho changes the setting. He envisions them in a hallways underwater, a tube-like arch above them made of glass in which they can see the sea creatures. The floor is carpet; the water is casting shadows on the tunnel. The movement of the fish is flowing and the green kelp is there but blurry because Yunho can’t focus on all of them at the same time. Yunho focused on the feeling he had in the tunnel, the awe and almost quiet that came over him, and the smell that is of salt, chlorine, and, well, fish._  
  
 _Jae is still hugging Yunho’s chest fascinated and Yunho is holding Jae’s waist as he bends a little bit facing the glass, they peer inside, “There” two fish swims up to them, they are swimming around each other and also coming up very close to the glass, Yun want’s Jae to see them very well._  
  
 _“The female Kelp Greenling is that brown one with golden freckles all along its body. Look how it has bright yellow fins that are so gorgeous. The male one is brown with these weirdly shaped blue spots that are ringed with red along the front end of its body.”_  
  
 _“Woahh” Jae’s mouth is open. The colors are bright to his eyes, he’s never seen fish like this before._  
  
 _Yunho let’s Jae admire those fish for a while, while he recreates the Vermilion rockfish._  
  
 _Jae’s focus shifts to these fish that are fat and larger than the length of his elbow to his hand. There are about three of them,  
  
“They’re red!” Jae tells Yunho. He smiles, that’s the reason he picked these fish, Jae loved red._  
  
 _After that Yunho and Jae laid down, Yunho formed a sleeping bag for them so they would be comfortable. Jae used one of Yun’s arms for a head rest still very close._  
  
 _“When you look up there are all these sharks that just swim by” Yunho remembered the broadnose sevengill shark, leopard shark, and the group of spiny dogfish sharks that were at the aquarium and showed them to Jae. Behind then large groups of nondescript fish swirled around in schools. Jae always listened intently drinking in the world that Yunho showed him._  
  
 _“There were also creatures you could touch”, Yunho sat up and Jae sat up quickly fidgeting like a small child about to get a prize. Yunho formed a round glass aquarium in front of them about 70cm in diameter. The glass was only about 30cm high without a top covering it. Inside there were star fish and sting rays of varying sizes and colors. Jae was wide eyed as if he’d found a great treasure._  
  
 _“You can pet the sting rays like this”, he slid his hand over the top of a stingray that had the wingspan of about two of Yunho’s hands. Yunho held Jae closer to him, sensing his nervousness, and guided Jae’s hand over the sting rays body as it swam by. Yunho made sure Jae felt the cold of the water, the smoothness of its back, and the slight slimy feeling that made it oh so real. Jae giggled and  
looked at Yunho over his shoulder, “Amazing” he whispered._  
  
 _“I know it is, sting rays are fascinating creatures” Yunho answered echoing Jae’s whisper, so happy that he could make Jae smile like that._  
  
 _“Not the sting ray silly, **you** ” Jae replied back. Jae leans in and kisses Yunho in the lips and just like that Yunho wakes up._  
  
 _\---_  
He stares at his ceiling for a long time. Turning his head to look at the clock he finds that it’s 7am. He’s in his senior year of high school but it’s the weekend so he can sleep in.  
  
Jaejoong is on his mind, Jaejoong… kissed him. The thought of it makes him blush beet red but also feel like his heart is being destroyed, not as if from a hammer continuously pounding on it but more like the air being knocked out of him, like his heart was thrown from a hundred story building and he can feel the speed intensifying and the impending doom that will follow is eating him up inside as he waits for that final moment where everything becomes destroyed.  
  
It’s 10am before he actually gets up. He showers, he changes, he heads out and grabs some food, and he makes it to the hospital by 11am.  
  
He sits at Jaejoong’s bedside. Jaejoong through the years has grown up, he is very skinny, his skin still glowing white, and has no muscle, but he’s been in a coma for 8 years so what does Yunho expect? Jaejoong has also grown more and more beautiful as the years passed by. Yunho, who had pretended not to notice when he was younger, had finally admitted to it when he began high school. Jae was exceptionally beautiful. His hair remained black, and cut shoulder length, Yunho was glad that Jae’s nurses tended to him so well even after all these years, but they may have also been motivated by Yunho’s nagging and constant visits.  
  
He watered the plants that were at the window and put a red flower in Jae’s hair. Yunho massaged Jaejoong’s body regularly; he worked from the arms to the legs and he did so again today. He knew it was nearly impossible but even if there was the slightest chance, Yunho wanted Jae to be able to return to a well kept body.  
  
Today felt strange, his fingers trembled as the touched Jae’s body that he was so familiar with yet unfamiliar with. In real life Yunho could feel the warmth of Jae’s body, the softness of his skin, and run his hand through Jae’s hair but Jae was not there. In his dreams he could be with Jae, hold Jae, but there was nothing really there, he could only share and project the feelings he has felt in the real world, not create them, when he hugged Jae, it was the warmth of the body Yunho was so familiar with, when he touched Jae’s hair it was the feeling of his hair in the real world that allowed him to be able to feel it in his dream..  
  
but the kiss… although Jae had kissed him, he had no idea what a kiss from Jae would feel like, what Jae’s lips would feel like on his own, and so he hadn’t been able to feel it. Jae may have kissed him but he couldn’t feel the kiss. It was like watching a movie, being a spectator versus being an actor, without the feeling of having kissed him in real life Yunho couldn’t feel the kiss in the dream, it was as if there was the desire, the action, the emotion, and yet he could not grasp it, the feeling of it.  
  
He loved Jaejoong, he had admitted to this long ago. And now he wanted to kiss Jaejoong, he wanted so much more but he couldn’t because Jaejoong was not in his physical body. The touches and warmth he felt in his dreams were just recreations of what his body felt in real life. He couldn’t create those feelings in the dream because he had to experience them in real life first. That realization and panic is what struck him so hard that he had suddenly awoke from the dream. Everything had felt so real but it wasn’t, none of it was, and the thought that he would never be able to truly feel Jaejoong, that he would never truly be able to kiss him…  
  
A tear flowed down Yunho’s cheek as he leaned over Jae’s body. Jae’s eyes fluttered slightly, as usual, as if he were about to wake up; his mouth, which had become more full through the years, was almost pulled into a smile, as it usually was. A tear fell on Jae’s lip and Yunho couldn’t stop himself from bringing his own lips up to his and kissing the body of the one he loved so dear.  
The person he never knew in life and the person he knew better than anyone else. The person who lived through his dreams.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
